The present invention relates generally to the field of device protection, and particularly to a system and method for providing protection of electronic devices from impending weather damage.
Electronic devices have become pervasive, important and in certain instances, necessary components in modern society today. As the range and variety of electronic devices has increased, so has a consumer's reliance on them. Even with increased productivity and functionality offered by the devices, unavailability of even one device may have a profound impact on the user. Interruptions caused by device inoperability may have an acute effect.
One such source of inoperability is due to weather occurrences. Certain electronic devices may be susceptible to weather events, such as lightning, hurricanes, tornados, high winds, ice storms and snow storms, which may render the devices inoperable. Even electronic devices which are sheltered in the confines of a home, office or the like, may be exposed to the characteristics of the weather event, such as a lightning strike to the structure, power surges, and the like. Such exposure may render an electronic device inoperable for a period of time, and may even destroy the electronic device.
The presence of severe weather conditions is becoming more commonplace due to the effects of global climate changes. Governments have invested heavily in the supercomputing applications of mid and long range weather forecasting, resulting in increased knowledge and warning capability. However, the capability of taking action as the result of this knowledge has not kept pace.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,088,254, which is hereby incorporated by reference, is directed to a system and method for providing a device with protection from a weather event. At least one weather characteristic of the weather event is determined and at least one device of a plurality of devices is ascertained as susceptible to the determined weather characteristic. Protective action is taken to protect the at least one device susceptible to the determined weather characteristic from the notified weather event. The disclosure does not provide for user configurable parameters associated with different levels of severity or does not take action based on user defined and configurable electronic devices.
There remains a need for damage protection of devices by customization. A need also exists for categorization of weather events. A further need exists for remote deactivation and reactivation.
Description Of the Related Art Section Disclaimer: To the extent that specific publications are discussed above in this Description of the Related Art Section, these discussions should not be taken as an admission that the discussed publications (for example, published patents) are prior art for patent law purposes. For example, some or all of the discussed publications may not be sufficiently early in time, may not reflect subject matter developed early enough in time and/or may not be sufficiently enabling so as to amount to prior art for patent law purposes. To the extent that specific publications are discussed above in this Description of the Related Art Section, they are all hereby incorporated by reference into this document in their respective entirety(ies).